“Every society has the criminals it deserves.”
~Emma Goldman
We have reached a point where the existence of a
terrorist threat from the right-wing can no more be denied. When neo-Nazis lay
siege to the Capitol, only those they do not wish to kill have the privilege to
pretend normality and civility can be restored. For the rest of us, the events
of January 6th were the right's announcement that they are ready and
willing to attack regardless of who is president. And this country will gladly
allow them the space in which to do it.
In the coming weeks we will hear Democrats shift
from calls for justice as they begin talking about peace and reconciliation.
They will say that we must have unity and find common ground with the same
people who just told us they want us dead. Men who wore “Camp Auschwitz” and
“Six Million Jews Was Not Enough" shirts are to brought back into the fold
by forcing us to bow before them and the Liberal left will demand as much.
There is no indignity, no amount of danger, considered too great for us to be ordered
to accept in the name of peace. And when the next attack comes, there will be
no amount of our blood spilled that is too much for the Democrats to consider
to be an acceptable sacrifice.
The Republicans have shown their hand. They
embraced a president who built larger camps in which to torture immigrants.
They licked Trump’s boots while he called Nazis “good people”. They have even
in the wake of the president’s treason tried to find ways to shift the blame
elsewhere, with men like Hawley dog whistling the base. A party that had torch
lit parades while shouting “they will not replace us", a Nazi slogan,
cannot be brought back into the fold. If the Republican Party is not abolished,
it will continue to be haven for genocidal factions dead set on the destruction
of democracy. There can be no peace with these people.
American society has long demanded its minority
populations sacrifice disproportionately for the sake of the majority. When
Black church goers are gunned down, the white gunman is sanitized by the media
and treated with kid gloves by the cops. When Hispanic workers go to the fields
and factories to put food on the tables of all Americans, the state uses their
vulnerability against them and breaks up their families while white owned
corporations get a free pass. When American Jews go to temple or market and are
met with the bullets of antisemites, all other Americans find ways to pretend
their embrace of antisemitic rhetoric had nothing to do with it. America is a
nation of cannibals, savages incapable of civilized behavior for more than a
moment, yet pretends to be a bastion of liberty and democracy. It builds up an
alter to itself on the backs of subjugated neighbors and former colonies while
placing its most vulnerable communities upon it as a sacrifice. All promises of
greatness from the American empire have always come with the price tag of the
innocent blood of intentionally voiceless minorities. The American dream
purchased through the deaths of those it erases from history books.
If the Democrats want peace they must first
force the United States into a confrontation with its past and present
behavior. They must attack the foundations of American mythology and reconcile
with the beast within this country. The painful experiences of the United
State’s minorities cannot be ignored any longer. The US must pay the devil for
time borrowed. Institutions of oppression, the same ones the Right holds up as
symbols of greatness, must be inspected and dismantled. Those who have profited
off the exploitation of the lower classes must be made to pay for their
transgressions as the dignity of the oppressed is restored and their quality of
life elevated from the present state of virtual slavery to the system. Until
the United States is ready to uproot the right-wing, level the field and offer
all people the same rights and liberties; peace is a synonym for submission.
